Troubling questions surface about suspect in girl's death

Mar. 9, 2009

Police found the body of 13-year-old Esme Kenney in the 5900 block of Winton Road on Sunday. / Provided

Written by

Sharon Coolidge and Dan Horn

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Students plastered Esme Kenney's locker - and seven adjacent ones - with dozens of cards, drawings, and posters and placed several teddy bears and flowers on the floor. A wall nearby contains another 150 or so letters, cards and messages from students. / The Enquirer/Denise Smith Amos

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Police knew Anthony Kirkland was dangerous long before they found him sleeping in the woods of Winton Hills Saturday night near the body of Esme Kenney.

They knew he had fatally beaten and burned a woman more than 20 years ago. They knew he was a convicted sex offender. They knew a halfway house had evicted him in late February and he was suspected of a crime spree that included an assault, a stabbing and threats against the mother of his child.

So when they found Kirkland on the edge of the wooded area near where Esme went jogging, her watch and iPod in his pocket, they immediately suspected the worst.

They found the 13-year-old girl’s body three hours later, about 100 yards away, her body hidden under brush in the heavily wooded area across the street from her Winton Hills home.

The question many now are asking is why a man with Kirkland’s criminal history – a man authorities say may be linked to two other, unsolved homicides – was walking free in the first place.

“We are examining everything in this case, including why somebody like this is walking around on our streets,” Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said. “Frankly it doesn’t surprise me anymore, but it is very upsetting.”

Kirkland, 40, is facing eight charges: murder, abduction, aggravated burglary, felonious assault, domestic violence, aggravated menacing, violation of a protection order and failure to provide notification related to Esme’s death and three other crimes in the last 10 days.

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Bond was set Monday at $5,325,000.

Cincinnati police say they are looking at Kirkland in connection to two 2006 homicides, 45-year-old Mary Jo Newton and 14-year-old Casonya “Sharee” Crawford, whose burned bodies were found in secluded areas of Avondale in May and June of 2006.

Hamilton County Coroner O’dell Owens said the killer attempted to burn Esme’s body, but he would not elaborate since his office had not made a final determination about how she died.

Kirkland’s arrest Saturday was not his first for a violent crime. He was convicted in 1987 of killing a woman by beating her and setting her on fire while she was still alive, a crime for which he served 16 years in prison.

While on parole for that crime, he was arrested for asking a 13-year-old girl for sex. That landed him in an Over-the-Rhine halfway house run by Volunteers of America. The halfway house released him Feb. 27 after officials there said he got into a fight with another resident.

Police were called to the halfway house, but did not arrest Kirkland. Officials at the halfway house then released Kirkland, but did not notify his parole officer until two days later.

“We are examining what occurred,” said Chris Lohrman, president of Volunteers of America.

Esme left her Winton Hills home at about 3:45 p.m. Saturday afternoon to jog around a reservoir, a route she had taken many times with her parents.

Saturday, she went alone, but her parents knew when she was leaving and expected her home within a half an hour, said Cincinnati Spokesman Lt. Mark Briede. When she wasn’t back in that allotted time, they called police, who responded to the home and took a missing person’s report.

“(Kenney)...went for a jog around water tower approx. 1545 and has not been seen since. Not usual for daughter to be gone this long and doesn’t often go for runs,” the report taker wrote.

Police started searching immediately, Briede said.

The news that Esme was dead spread quickly through her neighborhood and school. Flowers adorned her locker at the School for the Creative and Performing Arts, and visitors bearing flowers flocked to the family home in Winton Hills.

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Esme’s parents, Tom and Lisa Kenney, weren’t surprised by the response. They said their daughter not only wanted to enrich her own life, but also the lives of others.

“Esme was outgoing and loving. She had a poet’s sense of life,” her mother said. “You hear that you’re not supposed to be friends with your child, but with Esme you couldn’t help it.”

Relatives said Esme was a talented musician who played guitar and pursued anything that interested her with a passion. They said she wanted to learn as much as she could about the world around her.

She enjoyed the outdoors, had recently taken up photography and was an avid swimmer who had passed a boating course last summer.

“Esme had an enthusiasm for everything she did in life,” said her brother, Brian. “Her personality was giving, kind and open-hearted. Her enthusiasm was infectious.”

As friends and family mourned Esme’s loss, some also expressed anger and frustration over Kirkland’s suspected involvement.

“Parents are outraged,” said Leuna Kelly, of Northside, as she picked up her child and friends Monday at the School for the Creative and Performing Arts. “His criminal record is unbelievable. He was building up to this. He took a light and put it out.”

Esme’s cousin, Brad Kenney, said the family would not comment on the investigation, but he said the tragedy is another reminder that the justice system needs to do a better job identifying the criminals who can be rehabilitated, and those who cannot.

“There are some criminals that are absolutely beyond rehabilitation and need to be kept permanently locked up,” he said.

Authorities had been looking for Kirkland for more than a week, ever since his release from the halfway house.

Prison records show Kirkland was sentenced in 1987 to seven to 25 years in prison on charges of voluntary manslaughter and aggravated arson. Kirkland, who was 18 at the time, was charged with murder and arson for assaulting Leola Douglas, dousing her with lighter fluid and setting fire to her. Douglas apparently was alive when Kirkland set the fire and her severely burned body was found at the top of some stairs leading into Kirkland’s house in Walnut Hills.

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Police said Kirkland confessed to the 1987 crime shortly after his arrest. His lawyer at the time said Kirkland and Douglas argued after she threatened to expose an affair Kirkland was having with a married woman. Kirkland served 16 years and was released on parole Sept. 3, 2003.

The following October, he was released from parole, having committed no new crimes.

In January, 2005, Kirkland was accused of breaking into a neighbor’s Evanston home and raping her at knifepoint. He was acquitted of that charge.

He was convicted twice in 2007, once for threatening to kill his 18-month-old son and again for soliciting sex from a 13-year-old girl. He also appeared in court after a group of people sought a protection order against him. Court records don’t say why they wanted protection, but a judge ordered Kirkland to stay away from them.

Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Melba Marsh sentenced Kirkland to the one-year maximum sentence for soliciting sex from the teenaged girl, followed by five more years on parole. Marsh also designated Kirkland a sex offender and ordered him to annually register his name on a public list and any time he moves.

Marsh recalled the case and described Kirkland as “sinister.”

“From testimony, there is no doubt about it, he was a predator,” Marsh said.

Kirkland finished the prison term on Oct. 20, 2008 then was ordered to the Pogue Rehabilitation Center, the Over-the-Rhine halfway house.

Kirkland was not participating in the center’s sex offender program, Lohrman said. He said to protect Kirkland’s privacy he could not explain why.

Events at the halfway house on the night of Friday, Feb. 27 set in a motion a crime spree, according to the Adult Parole Authority, police and court records.

Kirkland fought with another inmate late that night. Police were called, but the inmate did not want to press charges, Lohrman said.

Because fighting isn’t allowed, Kirkland was thrown out. Police escorted him away but did not arrest him because the other resident wouldn’t press charges.

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By leaving and not registering his address elsewhere, Kirkland broke the law.

Volunteers of America didn’t report Kirkland leaving until the following Monday morning, according to Lohrman and Andrea Carson, a spokeswoman for the parole authority.

Lohrman said workers have no way of contacting parole officers on the weekend. Carson disputed that, saying workers there do have contact information for parole officers.

Briede said it’s unclear what information officers had about Kirkland when he was leaving.

After learning about Kirkland, Cincinnati City Councilman Chris Monzel called on state officials to stop sending sex offenders to Cincinnati for treatment and to help close the Pogue Center, something he’d asked the state to do in 2006.

“For years the Volunteers of America have been running facilities in Cincinnati that have made our city a virtual dumping ground for sexual predators from all over the state,” Monzel said. “It’s time for this facility to close once and for all and the only way this is going to happen is if the state to stops paroling them here after being released from prison.”

On March 1 – before authorities knew Kirkland had left – he was accused of breaking into an Avondale home, hiding in the bathroom and then attacking Frederick Hughes when he came home, stabbing him with a pair of scissors 10 times, according to court records. Hughes was treated at the hospital and survived.